>Why don’t development geographers and economic geographers talk to
each other?
We do here at Liverpool, Roger - honest!!!!!
Kind regards, Pete
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> CALL FOR PAPERS:
> ECONOMIC AND DEVELOPMENT GEOGRAPHIES
> IBG CONFERENCE 2003
>
> Dear All
>
> Apologies for cross-posting
>
> This is a call for papers for the following session, jointly
organised
> by DARG and EGRG, to be held at the 2003 RGS-IBG Conference (3 – 5
> September) in London. Abstracts needed by 10 March 2003.
>
> UNDERSTANDING GLOBALISATION? ECONOMIC AND DEVELOPMENT GEOGRAPHIES
>
> convenors Roger Lee and Cathy McIlwaine
>
> RGS-IBG Annual Conference
> Wednesday 3 – Friday 5 September 2003
> RGS-IBG 1 Kensington Gore London SW7 2AR
>
> This session is concerned with the problems and possibilities
arising
> from discursive conversations between geographies of economies and
> geographies of development. Why don’t development geographers and
> economic geographers talk to each other, how might they, and what
would
> be the point of such conversations?
>
> Concerns for distant others – whether, for example, in the
> parochially-centred form of imperialism (neo-or otherwise), the
> promulgation of social justice, an ethic of care, or an engagement
with
> difference (even if only latterly differences of the self) – have
been
> central to various formulations of human geography over the past
century
> or so. The underlying (and often unthought) geography assumed in
much of
> this work is of a core (relatively unproblematic in terms of
> development) and a periphery (relatively problematic in these
terms).
> The self-centrism and absolutism of this position has been revealed
both
> through the deconstruction of what might be meant by ‘development’
and
> through the diverse border-crossing flows associated with cycles of
> globalisation – which have made a mess of neat geographies of self
and
> other. The relationality inherent (if often unrecognised in
> essentialised notions of place and difference) in the geographical
> imagination is now forced onto the agenda of economic, political and
> social thought if not - as is all too apparent in hegemonic
responses to
> September 11 2001 - of geo-political practice and understanding.
>
> Such deficiencies reflect, in part at least, a failure to
problematise
> the relations between apparently globally hegemonic economic
geographies
> and local understandings of, and desires for, the nature and
objectives
> of development. But in the context of a fluid, multi-scalar,
relational
> world, any rapprochement of the continuing mutual isolation of
economic
> and development geographies is problematic. For one thing, such a
> meeting involves more than a (re)focus, in the ‘core’, on the lives,
> living places and work of non-local ‘peripheral’ or
‘semi-peripheral’
> others. In a globalising, relational world, such ‘others’ are
> ‘our’selves. And these selves – people, places, practices - are
> constantly and creatively (if sometimes violently) othered.
Networked
> geographies of contradictory capitalist evaluation and practice and
of
> resistance and opposition transcend and, at the same time, produce
place
> and new forms of place. Whilst often frightening and beyond
> non-relational comprehension, these contradictions and oppositional
> formations may also be full of potential. They point up the
possibility
> - even the necessity - of othering, of alternatives, of a diversity
of
> economic geographies. Thus a rapprochement also involves a
> reconceptualisation of economies and a recognition of the
possibilities
> of economic diversification. Or at least it involves a recognition
of
> the formative (if often violent) relations both between competing
> capitalisms and between them and non-capitalist processes of
> exploitation in the production and circulation of values. Such
processes
> are essential to all economies and hence to development, however
> defined. Furthermore, and relatedly, geographies of uneven
development
> have, in such a geographically fluid, disrupted and relational
world,
> themselves to be reformulated. An exclusive focus on the
consequences of
> global capitalism, whilst in some ways ever more essential in the
> contemporary world, also serves to reduce development to a
placeless,
> passive and helpless process, shaped solely by dominant external
> relations. Conversely, a recognition of the relational construction
of
> places decentres western hegemony. Everywhere, all selves and all
> others, become marginalised.
>
> All of these transformations (and more) are in process. They demand
new
> geographies of development and of economies to escape from the
confines
> not merely of the intellectual nonsense of singular economies but of
the
> equally nonsensical, singular, essentialised and rigid geographies
of
> those economies which have long since been superseded.
>
> In exploring these ideas, the session aims to include both
theoretical
> and empirical papers.
>
> If you would like to participate, please email either
>
> Roger Lee ([log in to unmask]) or
> Cathy McIlwaine([log in to unmask])
> Department of Geography, Queen Mary, University of London, London E1
4NS
> 020 7882 5400
>
> The final date for receipt, by us, of abstracts for the session is
10
> March 2003
>
> --
> roger lee
> professor of geography and head of department
> queen mary, university of london
> london e1 4ns
> uk
>
> [log in to unmask]
> telephone +44 (0)20 7882 5410
> fax +44 (0)20 8981 6276
> web address http://www.geog.qmul.ac.uk/
> this site contains details of our undergraduate, MSc and MPhil/PhD
> programmes of study
>
Peter North
Department of Geography
University of Liverpool
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